Okay okay last year I did pretty good on the monthly recap posts. This year, not so much. But we just wrapped up Q1 so let’s see if I can handle quarterly posts instead.
This is all very out of order.
I made lasagna, we had king cake, we went and got pizza for my birthday (a bit early), then I got a tattoo and dinner with Jen on my actual birthday. Kiki gave me this beautiful pot. I love it.
A lot of driving happened. I don’t hate being chauffeured around.
Random things like, we went to the zoo, it got cold enough to freeze, Grandee and Larry came to watch soccer, we watched the boys’ and girls’ school teams in the state finals, we, uh, went to costco, the jasmine is blooming!, I hung a bunch of pictures, I made a quilt, I cut my hair off, our house turned 20 (well, with us in it.)
Kiki came to visit!!! We had dinner with Ren.
Mardi Gras happened! I covered a jacket in sequin patches.
My friend Erin was in town so we got to hang out and went to the insectarium/aquarium.
December! Gotta finish this so I can do my year-end recap, which in retrospect seems kind of silly after writing the monthly recaps but whatever.
The boys turned 16! They had friends over a couple of nights before, and we went to the bonfire, as usual. We had steaks for dinner on their actual birthday.
I got to see my friend Zandy for the first time since 2019!
Their big gift was Saints tickets, which we went to (and this time, they won, woo!)
Ziggy was cute, duh.
Soccer was played. They actually won a game! Twice!
Took them shopping individually. I only had to have sushi twice!
Christmas was nice. We did the usual Christmas Eve traditions (steak dinner, eggnog daiquiri for me, read TNBC, took the stocking pic. My sister and fam came to Baton Rouge for Christmas, so we went there on Christmas Day.
The next day, they came to New Orleans and we went to Christmas fest. I ice skated!
Later in the week, I went to Baton Rouge alone to help my mom and Larry after she had a procedure on her hand. I don’t want to talk about it.
Lots of driving happened.
Then it was New Year’s Eve and Miles and I watched the fireworks on the levee!
Other random things: my car broke down, pretty decorations, our friend’s birthday party, moms blog Christmas party, camellias bloomed, Oliver made an island, advent calendars, hooray! etc.
Okay, seriously, April went by way too fast. What did we doooooo?
Easter! Mom and Larry came over. I made a delicious chocolate cake and other things. And we got a family pic.
I donated blood, and while I ended up with bruising on both arms (my veins aren’t as hearty as you would expect from me) I also got a cool t-shirt.
And then a few days later, I got another flower tattoo. This one was for Kiki. I told her she could pick, and she chose a hibiscus because it reminded her of her mom, as they had them growing at their house when she was growing up.
Artistry by Mecca at Hell or High Water here in New Orleans. I highly recommend her and her shop.
Less fun, the boys kicked a hole in the wall and I covered it with a sheet of whiteboard:
Lots of soccer, but it also ended this month. Yay! There were goals scored by my children, which was nice to see. We went to a tournament in Lafayette. They didn’t totally suck! I made friends with a five year old. It was delightful.
After a real shitshow of a game on the north shore, we had dinner with my cousin Rob and his wife. It was so great to see them! So great.
Ziggy was cute, yet again.
What else? The boys got obsessed with basketball, I made another bunny for a grieving little brother, I got new shoes, I sewed some things, George and I had tacos, I made breakfast pizza for dinner. I started a three month rotation with the tumblr support team, and I’m loving it.
And now it’s May and this month the boys will finish their freshman year, I’m going to Rotterdam, and birthdays will be celebrated. But I won’t have to watch any soccer games!
March was obviously kind of low-key, because I haven’t felt the need to post anything since the monthly picture.
Today they had their 15 year well visits, and I was excited to see how tall they were. I assumed Oliver and I were the same height, 5’10”.
I was right and wrong. We are the same height, but we are 5’9″.
This has shaken me to my core. I’m actually fine with getting older and shrinking. I am not okay with the idea that I was never 5’10”. So we’re going to go with shrinking. It’s fine.
And Miles and Linus are only half and a quarter inch behind Oliver, and they’re all within a pound in weight, which is wild. I don’t think they’ve ever been this similar since they were born! (I was going to look to see how long they were at birth, and apparently this is not documented anywhere. Not on this blog, not in my medical records, not in any emails. Nowhere. Huh.)
My sister to the rescue: Her nephews were 16.5, 17, and 17 inches long. Which means, yes, they are (relatively) closer in height and weight now than they were at birth. Wild.
And boy, is it true that they just stretch out like taffy at this age. In the past two years, Linus gained almost 9 inches in height but less than a pound in weight. Crazy.
So let’s see, what else happened in May?
Let’s see. Ziggy was cute. No change there.
Oliver and Linus got haircuts. Zzz.
I made a pretty skirt! Oh that’s nice. It’s the Upton skirt by Cashmerette, this floral embroidered mesh came from Joann’s, of all places. I used a pale pink satin for the underlayer. (Thank you Ren for the runway photo from the hotel hallway.)
The most exciting part of the month was going up to Natchitoches for my 30th high school reunion. (Yes, I graduated at the tender age of 7.)
It was so much fun. Really nice to reconnect with friends I haven’t seen in a while. Bittersweet, though, because this is when the boys would be getting their acceptance letters if they’d applied. I mean, obviously I’m glad they’re not leaving me, but it’s hard not to want the same experience I had, when it was so life-changingly wonderful. And the new dorms are very nice.
There was lots of soccer too. A tournament in Baton Rouge where Oliver got the only goal for their team all weekend. Then another game last weekend where Oliver got the only goal. This weekend is another tournament, but I guess you’ll have to wait for the next monthly update to hear about it!
I also made a stuffed bunny for a mom in the neighborhood who lost her baby daughter earlier this year. I felt honored that she trusted me with the task. It came out cute, I think. She was happy, which is the important thing.
The jasmine is blooming, which is the only good thing about spring. Well, and daylight savings time (ending? beginning? I can never remember.) but I need to get a new grill because the one we had fell apart.
I read a good book, I recommend it.
I got to have lunch with a work friend.
The boys ate a lot of saltines.
Stephanie chopped off her hair for St. Baldrick’s. Tragically, I forgot to wear my giant medal.
24 years after graduating from LSU with a friggin general studies degree, I paid off my student loans! Wheeee!
And yeah, that’s about it.
Oh, except starting on April 3, I will be on a new team at work for three months, working on Tumblr support. I’m very excited for the change of scenery!
Well, it’s the last day of February and I did vow to write a recap post every month, so here I am. February was mostly Mardi Gras, but some other stuff too.
George and I went to lunch for my birthday.
I started physical therapy for my back (that will continue through March.)
I made a puffy vest.
Mardi Gras happened.
I redid this shirt from sequins to fringe.
I made a big obnoxious hat and a tiny obnoxious hat.
We watched the varsity team lose the state final. 😦
Club soccer started up again.
March will be my 30th high school reunion (!) and more soccer.
We (the boys and I) got home yesterday from ten days in Virginia and I’d better write it all down before I forget. The beginning of our trip already feels like a lifetime ago (but like, a really fun lifetime.)
We arrived after an early flight at around lunchtime on Saturday the 9th. Kiki picked us up, and we headed to my sister’s house to drop the boys off for their first day of Camp Aunt Jenny. She made shirts. After lots of hugs and pictures, Kiki and I left to go have lunch at a Mexican-Indian restaurant. (Yum!)
Then we got to go back to give hugs and goodbyes again because I left my wallet at my sister’s. (Convenient!)
After shopping for a lot of booze and food, we headed to Kiki’s house and got ready for Camp Kiki. I made shirts. We had a very fancy Wagyu steak for dinner. It was sublime. Also Maxie is very cute.
We loaded up Kiki and Mike’s car Sunday morning and drove a couple of hours to an amazing airbnb in Charlottesville. On the way, we stopped at winery #1, Early Mountain. We drank wine and ate delicious food, including this couscous that I need to figure out how to recreate. It was incredible.
The airbnb was amazing – very clean, well stocked, and with a huge pool, hot tub, and a gorgeous view. Perfect place for Camp Kiki!
Day 2 in Charlottesville:
Kiki went for a walk, then hit a few wineries before spending the afternoon in the pool. Everything was delicious and the scenery everywhere was stunning. We made s’mores around the firepit later and saw lots of fireflies, which was exciting for me.
The next day, Kiki’s friend Jess arrived, yay! That day we hit up a winery and a brewery, had more delicious food, more pool time and then some rousing rounds of Shithead.
Wednesday was the day for lunch at Pippin Hill, which was just breathtakingly gorgeous. We also hit a cidery afterwards, where I got to see apple trees and a cute dog.
Sadly, Wednesday was our last night there. And of course that’s when I discovered a friend lives less than ten minutes away from where we were staying. Isn’t that always the way?
But I couldn’t be too sad because the next phase of Camp Kiki was a trip to New York City!
We got back to Woodbridge Thursday afternoon, did a shitload of laundry, and repacked for the trip to NYC.
Friday morning, we hopped on a train like the fun-loving globetrotters we are.
After a few hours we arrived at Penn Station, and then made our way to our hotel (not before having some lunch and wine.) The hotel was adorable. It’s called the Library Hotel and see if you can guess what the theme of it is.
After relaxing, we headed out to dinner at a wine bar, and then to a play. The play was the main reason we went to NYC. One of the stars is Noah Reid from Schitt’s Creek and maybe you don’t know this about me but I am a little obsessed with Schitt’s Creek. Surprise! I was supposed to go in May but because SOME CHILDREN I WON’T MENTION got covid, I had to cancel that trip. So I’m glad I got to see it finally. Even if it was…weird.
The wine bar we went to was fancy (like us) and we had some delicious wine and food before heading to the theater. Our seats were very good, and it was neat to see Patrick Noah Reid up close.
We were only there for one night, but we made the most of our morning before the train back to DC. We walked down to the Union Square Greenmarket, which was very cool. And then wandered around for a while. Kiki was THE VERY BEST FRIEND EVER and agreed to let me go to Mood. Yay! I tried to be as fast as possible, but I get decision paralysis at smaller places than this, but I went in with just one goal (some cotton poplin) and I made it out with just that. Whew!
Afterwards, we got our stuff from the hotel and I cursed my sandals for reactivating my Achilles tendinitis, but it was worth it. We hobbled our way back to the train station, and, well, the rest of the day was fairly uneventful.
I mean, we’ve done so much already, wouldn’t you think our trip was almost over by now? It’s only Saturday at this point and we didn’t go home until Tuesday!
Sunday, we went and retrieved my offspring from my sister’s house. They had stayed up until 2am because my sister had promised them middle of the night ihop, so they were pretty tired, but we had a baseball game to go to!
Mike and Kiki have season tickets to the Nationals so that’s how we spent Sunday. We ate delicious food, drank delicious things (including a bloody mary with a raw oyster on top), and were good luck charms for the Nats, who won for the first time in a little while. Yay us! It was overcast, too, which was nice.
We were all pretty exhausted after that.
Monday was our last full day, boo! We took the boys to see the new Thor movie, which was fun. And then we picked up some dinner, and saw a rainbow, and packed up our stuff, and watched the Home Run Derby.
Tuesday morning we went home. Everyone (except us, apparently) is getting covid and it sucks. But it was nice to see Ziggy again and to sleep in my own bed. The end.
Well, summer has officially begin. We’re in it now. What’s happened since the last update? Every minor in the house has had covid, but no adults. I got my booster when the first one had it, so fingers crossed I’ll avoid it for now. I know it’s going to get me eventually, but I’d prefer it wait until we get back from Virginia.
The boys had their eighth grade promotion ceremony, which was very sweet. There was a huge party after, that was fun. (Still, no covid.) There was an end of the year night at the City Park amusement park. Fortunately, the timing of those all worked out with the sicknesses.
My dear friend Mary Catherine moved away, so we had to take one last picture of the boys with Millie. (I mean, until we go visit.)
They’ve grown a bit.
Oliver had a treadmill accident the day we joined Planet Fitness. Then later that evening I had the brilliant idea to cut garlic with a mandolin. (Don’t.)
We got a new oven, the old one finally conked out. Getting rid of the shitty Samsung appliances one at a time. (New fridge was last month.)
The new stovetop is induction, though, which means I had to replace almost all of my pots and pans. But it’s worth it because it boils a pot of cold water in under three minutes!
Other things I recommend are freezy pop bags to freeze margaritas in and the PhotoScan app so I can scan a bunch of pictures in no time.
I guess that’s about it! The boys have a kind of orientation week at their high school this week, and they’ve been going to futsal (indoor soccer) once a week, too.
I kept meaning to post this month, but couldn’t really make myself do it (aside from the quilt post.) But now I am feeling more up to it.
Starting with my birthday, which I was kind of not excited about (which is VERY SAD because I love birthdays so much) because the weather was supposed to be gross, and omicron was in full force so we couldn’t go anywhere and I couldn’t do anything and I was just sad. And I was supposed to go visit Kiki, but thanks to omicron, we decided it was best to postpone it.
But it ended up being a lovely day! I did a live Peloton class (alas, no birthday shout-out but lots of high fives), the boys gave me cards they made that made me cry, and Oliver made me scrambled eggs. Then my friends Jen and Aimee came over and the weather was lovely and Jen brought me a bananas foster king cake and half a gallon of frozen margarita and we sat outside and gave ourselves diabetes but it was just so nice to sit and chat with friends.
George gave me a vacuum sealer to go with my sous vide he gave me for Christmas, and while it may not sound like the most romantic gift ever, it was very appreciated. I mean, who hasn’t always wanted a vacuum sealer? It is very fun. And Kiki gave me a subscription to NYT cooking and some fun goodies to open.
And I spent the day making a cake from scratch, then ordering a ton of Chinese food for dinner, and all in all, it was a lovely birthday.
Cards and cake and vacuum-sealed king cake!
Other notable things in January…
I got an new sewing machine! I am in love. It’s fairly basic, feature-wise (just a straight-stitch machine) but it’s so powerful and FAST and sews through multiple layers of canvas and denim like it’s NOTHING. And it was so nice to use when quilting the quilt I made for Kiki.
Hey, gorgeous!
Which brings me to the quilt I made for Kiki, that’s quilt number 3 if you’re counting. I wanted to send her comfort and coziness so I made it out of flannel. I wanted to do shades of blue, and kind of ombre, so I cut long strips and sewed them together into one big long roll, then cut them into roughly 70″ lengths, then sewed them together! Simple, but I like the way it turned out. Until I realized I really had to hand sew the binding because of the solid colors, and then I hated myself for making it so big, but you know what, Kiki’s worth it, and it only ended up taking a couple of evenings to finish up.
I just am not really into making clothes right now but I had fun making a few wristlets and a little pouch. It’s the Yarrow Wristlet pattern from Noodlehead. It was just challenging enough to be fun, but not, like, torturously hard.
Why yes, that is Schitt’s Creek fabric on the inside of the black and white one. As if I’d go a whole post without mentioning it! (Got it from Spoonflower.)
Oh, and the boys got their booster shots for the vaccine trial! Yay! That was a relief, because they also started back at soccer this week. Oh, and they took a test to maybe go to a different high school next year but I’m not quite ready to think about that just yet.
Boosted!
So yeah, that’s about it for January. I am supposedly going to visit Kiki in mid-March now. Next month I am going to a jeans-making workshop that I’m very excited about (despite what I said earlier about sewing clothes) and of course Mardi Gras is coming up, and the house float is going back up, and we might be adding to it, so hopefully everyone stays healthy and we can have a nice February! And March!
P.S. This is random but pork tenderloin cooked with a sous vide is revelatory.
I feel like maybe the last thing I want to do is revisit 2021, but you know, there were some real high points, so let’s do it.
January
I turned 46. I sat around the fire pit at my friend Jen’s house and it was all I wanted to do for my birthday – so it was perfect. Spending time with my friends was what made 2021 bearable, but it happened so infrequently, so that is what made it terrible.
February
Mardi Gras! I spent a lot of January preparing for this, the Schitt’s Creek house float that I participated in. It was one of the high points of 2021. I had so much fun making my Moira costume (and Jen’s!) and helping with the creation (mostly telling Chris what to do) and then on Mardi Gras day, seeing all the people and BEING INTERVIEWED BY THE BBC.
You know, in case you wanted to watch it.
That wasn’t the only excitement in February. The boys were also enrolled in a COVID vaccine trial (Moderna) and we learned later in the year that they actually did get the vaccine (first one in February, second in March.)
March
Really, not much happened. Well, I got my vaccine. That was nice.
Things were looking up. We found out the boys were fully vaccinated. Was it over? We were able to take off our masks and do things! I took the boys to a couple of soccer games. We ate at a restaurant! We booked a trip to California! Life was back to normal! I call this “the golden time.” Boy were were we naive.
We got devastating news in the middle of the month when my sweet cousin Molly died suddenly. I still can’t believe it.
The boys and I went to California to visit Evan and Jennifer and Ellie. It was a lovely trip, even though it was under a cloud of sadness. Things still felt normal. We went to Disneyland and to an LAFC game and to the beach, and I got to meet my best friend in person finally. (She’s 3.)
This is when the golden time ended. LA had re-introduced a mask mandate not long before we got there. Delta was coming. Thank god we went when we went, or we wouldn’t have been able to go at all.
Yikes, it’s been a while since I posted, and a lot has happened. Well, for one, we came home. Wheee!
Let’s see, the last post was taken on a Saturday, and power came back on late Monday night, so we went home on Tuesday the 7th. All told, we were away from home for 11 days, and boy was our fridge gross. We’d thrown out all of the food the previous Friday when George and Miles and I went to check things out, so it could have been worse, for sure.
Gas was still hard to come by when we got home, as were groceries. Even now, two weeks after coming home, stores aren’t fully stocked. But it’s getting better.
We had to get a tree removed, and while we had a crew, we also had them prune some of our other trees. I was sad to see the tree go – though I’m hoping that the increased sunlight in the yard will mean my new plants from when we had the yard redone last spring will start thriving.
Just a stump.
It’s sad to look out of the upstairs bathroom window and not see the tree, though.
I’ve also been sewing a bit more. I made a new cardigan for myself and a skirt for Terry for her birthday.
I’ve also been baking a bunch. I found this no-knead recipe that is so easy, it seems silly not to make bread every day. Well, last night it was pizza. We also made flour tortillas the other night because, why not?
Ziggy is still cute.
Oliver has eaten avocados.
The boys still haven’t gone back to school in person yet – this week has been virtual. In theory they’ll go back to campus next week. (Mold issues, not COVID.) And soccer was supposed to start last week, but we’re waiting on that too. Hopefully soon!
Twenty years ago today, on July 10, 2001, I published my first ever blog post. Not that I called it a blog then. Each month was a page on my website (not sure what the URL was back then, because I didn’t register pyjammy.com until March 2002) and I would update the month’s HTML file every time I posted an entry.
I added a splash page at some point. How 2003 of me!
Sometime around 2003, I moved it to a real blogging platform (okay fine it was Blogger.) And then in 2008 I moved it to WordPress.com (and it was self-hosted for a while, but after I started at Automattic, I moved it back here to WordPress.com.)
Over the past 20 years I’ve blogged about running, weight loss, wedding planning, pregnancy, raising triplets, and sewing. This is the 4092nd post.
Back when it was on Blogger :shudder:
My stats don’t go back prior to 2009, but since then I’ve had over 2,000,000 views and 300,000 visitors. 2010 was my zenith of blogging, when I posted 541 times (that’s when I started the first 365 project, back when the boys were little and adorable.)
pyjammy dot blog 